element of surprise
by 13pens
Summary: Tink and Vidia, who are not in the best of terms, are paired up as supernatural equivalents of lab partners. Sort of. One-Shot, Witch AU.


**A/N:** a prompt from strangesmallbard: Tink and Vidia as witches, who have to put aside their differences to fight an evil force.

I got there. Sort of. With really piss-poor world-building, but I got there.

In this AU Tink doesn't have a twin, and its set in a clusterfuck of timelines with no historical connection to our own, besides linguistically and technologically I guess. I dunno. It's a mess. But it's a wholesome, gay mess.

* * *

 _socius_ (latin): companion, partner, ally, friend.

* * *

Tink would rather be asleep right now.

She holds her wand with loose fingers, arm limp from disbelief as the wand pulses with a white glow. Across from her, with the same disbelief but just a little more indignance, is Vidia. Her own wand wanes and waxes with light.

"No," she simply says. "Not going to happen."

Tink finally frowns. She got up from her nap for this, to follow where her wand took her after it started flashing like a goddamn strobe light. She would rather still be asleep.

"You're telling _me_."

* * *

Headmistress Clarion folds her hands uneasily over her desk, looking at the pair of very unsatisfied witches before her. "I'm afraid that's beyond our control."

"I didn't wait all my life for my _socius_ to be Miss Cogswheel over here," Vidia protests. "She'll only hold me back."

"Someone will have to hold _me_ back if this arrangement lasts any more than a second," Tinker Bell sputters.

A corner of Clarion's upper lip tugs upward in amusement. "When witches are ready to pair in teams, the magic decides for them. The magic knows best. You'll make excellent partners. I assure you we'll see no other finer practices of witchcraft."

Vidia and Tink simultaneously groan.

* * *

Vidia puts a box in front of Tink outside of class hours. Tink pauses mid-chew of her sandwich and stares up at her. "What's this?"

Vidia wrinkles her nose at Tink's full mouth. "It's a new wand."

"Okay..." Tink swallows. "Why."

"Maybe things will reset if you re-bind to another wand." She shifts from one leg to another, eyeing left and right, wary to be seen talking to Tink of all people.

"What!" The sandwich in her hand almost flies into Vidia's face. "I'm not _rebinding_ , this wand is from m––" Tink bites her tongue. "In any case that wouldn't work. We're the software and the wand is hardware."

"Ugh."

Tink balls up her hands on top of the table, something suddenly aching in her heart and in her stomach. "You know we used to be friends," she says in a low voice.

Something flashes in Vidia's eyes but she looks away too quick for it to last. She snatches the box away and walks away without a word.

* * *

Their continued acts of resistance manifest in just not showing up to _socii_ classes. Or if they do, never the same sessions. It works out that way. They tacitly decide that if they can keep up without each other's help, perhaps the magic that allegedly "knows best" will fuck off and reconsider.

It has not fucked off or reconsidered.

"Your peers have already advanced to tier-two magic," the instructor, Mary of Tink's coven, says to Vidia as she, for the twelfth time, has failed to save the plush duck from imminent death. "Improvements to you and your partner's attendance would serve you quite well."

Other witches huddled together in the meadow try not to laugh. Some of them, friends of Tink, wear expressions ranging from amusement to secondhand embarrassment.

"I don't need her," Vidia insists with annoyance, gritting her teeth. "Just reset the scenario. I'll get it this time."

Mary sighs. She raises her wand and rearranges the obstacles, the duck atop a set of junk, metal and wood and other crap that Vidia can't name organized into a weird death trap. Mary adds a lick of fire at the bottom for measure, where, if Vidia fails, the duck would walk right into.

She just needs to save the duck and get out of here.

Vidia takes a defensive stance, grips her wand tight. Her inclination of wind, mastered into a talent now, only creates a whisper that barely tips the duck out of harm's way.

"It's the freaking weather. How do you expect me to use my element in this weather?"

Mary tightens her mouth. "Class is dismissed. Vidia, you stay."

The witches behind them disperse, strings of chatter separating and receding until the silence of the meadow returns. Vidia crosses her arms, looks down.

"Among that pile of nonsense is an electric fan," Mary says.

Vidia doesn't look at it. "Your point."

"Tink's element is mechanics, is it not?"

"That's not even a real element."

"Nonetheless. The minute that fan is turned on you would have had ample wind to work with to carry the duck to safety, without causing an accidental brushfire due to lack of precision."

"That was _once,_ and Silvermist took care of it before it even became anything. God, this is all so _pointless_ , in what situation would that ever be necessary _––_ "

" _Vidia_ ," Mary says firmly, and Vidia actually jolts at the sudden loudness of it, finally looking up at her. Mary softens. "You're one of our finest witches at the academy, and in the village. Both of which need protecting. They don't talk about it for who knows why, but we're getting less and less safe. That I'm sure you're very aware of."

Vidia crosses her arms tighter, but it's more like hugging herself. "Don't bring that up."

"Magic is evolving and if we don't catch up, if we don't work together, we'll be overtaken."

"Okay. I get it."

"Do you, Vidia?"

"Yes," Vidia says begrudgingly. "I do."

* * *

Vidia is standing there, her fist raised in mid-air when Tink opens her front door.

"I heard," Tink says. "I failed the duck test twenty-six times."

Vidia deflates. "Can I come in."

"It's not like I can say no now," Tink answers with a sigh.

They go into the kitchen, where Tinker Bell hauls a giant typewriter off the table and onto a counter and gets the kettle going with a flick of her wand. She tries not to think about the times Vidia's been here before, and when there were a lot more voices echoing around her home.

"We're stuck at tier-one. Basic universals and inclination magic. We need to catch up," Vidia says, hands resting on her lap and not the table like the world's most defensive sitter. "I don't even know what's in tier-two magic. More universals? Another inclination?"

"It's transformative magic," Tink says, leaning on the counter. "Witch pairs combine their magic into something greater than their parts. Tier-three is when a witch can do that with any other and combining magic is as easy as changing plugs."

She doesn't say how she had been waiting for a _socius_ with cauldrons full of desperation and longing since...

"...Right." A beat. "Have you heard from your parents?"

Tinker Bell stares at Vidia, caught off guard from the question. The moments that pass draw lines on Vidia's face as she sinks into herself.

"Sorry. It's just really quiet in here."

"I know."

The kettle whistles.

* * *

"Steady," Rosetta guides, supervising the stream of light balancing between Vidia and Tink's wands as they stand across each other in the field.

"I'm trying," Vidia mutters.

Silvermist sits on a fallen tree trunk, and no one is really sure if she's wincing or about to laugh. "It's like watching Fawn and Nyx."

"And now look at them. Like peas in a pod," Rosetta says.

Tink rolls her eyes, loses her footing a little bit and the stream flickers. "Dreams can come true."

"What's the point of this again?" Vidia says.

Rosetta walks behind Tink and gently pulls her backward to create more distance, and the light expands like a stretched piece of gum. "You'd know if the two of you didn't cut classes to avoid each other. It's to summon your _socius_ inclination. Or one of them at least."

"The sum greater than it's parts," Tinker Bell says.

Vidia's arm is starting to hurt, and she can feel the magic draining. "Well what kind of _sum_ could our magic possibly do? Conjure helicopters?"

"Your stream is looking awful sloppy." Rosetta sighs. "Give it a rest for a minute, let me and Silvermist demonstrate again."

Tink and Vidia watch as they seamlessly work together to change the fucking weather, the sky shifting in elegant command.

"Yeah, sure, we'll get to that point sometime this millennia," Vidia grumbles.

* * *

They decide it's in their best interests to be practicing on their own time. The sun sets over the Crescent Hollow hills, giving the surfaces it shines on an overcoat of red light.

Tink is on her way across the field when Vidia speaks.

"I don't like how methodical our witchcraft is."

Tinker Bell turns around, giving her a quizzical look. She tugs her hoodie over her head when a chill blows. "What do you mean?"

"All the jargon. Tier one, two, three, transformatives, inclinations, inclinations versus talents, elementals, sums greater than their parts. I've always just done what felt right. Working in a team means I can't do that anymore."

Vidia looks down at the grass, fidgeting with the tip of her wand, a kind of shame creeping onto her face, spreading through to her shoulders. Crescent Hollow witchcraft is all _about_ working as a team.

Tink stares at her for a moment, cogs in her head clicking into place. "Oh," she says. "I've always needed the jargon."

"I can see that."

"Well, um, what's the midpoint of methodical and winging it?"

Vidia shrugs. "I don't know," she says, almost defensively.

"Hey." Tink moves forward and tugs a part of Vidia's cloak, not actually touching her arm. "We can figure it out together. This could be fun."

Vidia looks at her in the eye for the first time that day. "Okay."

* * *

When they find the midpoint of methodical and winging it, the sum looks like lightening, powerful currents and flashes of bright light.

Tink actually leaps for joy and it nearly strikes her in the ass.

* * *

They show up to class together, on time, with no fusses. Mary gives them a sharp squint of the eyes.

Clouds hang overcast above the training site, the smell of rain mixing with the scent of the grass. It's ideal for witches with inclinations for water and perhaps, if a storm should come, wind, but the quality of the air feels off, even in the typical chatter of their fellow witches.

"Good to see you two here, finally," Mary says. "Let's check on your progress."

"Please let it not be the duck," Tink mumbles under her breath. It doesn't slip past Mary anyhow.

Mary raises the wand and conjures the same arrangement of obstacles, tailored once again to Tinker Bell and Vidia's inclinations. "Save the duck."

It's easy. Mary had given them the answer just a week before. In a matter of seconds the plush is settled safely in Vidia's arms.

"Okay, Mary, we've got the stupid du––"

Mary is not there. Tinker Bell and Vidia look across the meadow in a full circle turn and they find that no one is there.

It starts to rain.

"This isn't right," Tink says, pulling up her hood.

"Clearly."

"Oh, no."

The ground starts shaking and Vidia looks where Tink's gaze is fixated––the trash heap, now arranging itself, scraps of metal, wheels, rebars, an old computer monitor, until––

"Oh, _no!_ " Tink shouts into the air in frustration. "Mary! We did _not_ sign up for a freaking robot! It's not even well put together and honestly I am insulted––"

The mechabeast, an ugly mess of a monster with wires coming out of its hollow, tinny, body, raises an arm and swings downward.

Vidia, duck still in her goddamn arm, whips out her wand and points upward to immobilize the arm, distance just short of creating a Tink-shaped dent in the ground.

Tink scrambles out of the way, getting grass stains all over her pants, before directing her wand at the center of the mechabeast. Her blows snip at screws and wires, moves a rebar just an inch to the left to throw off internal balance, but then a wire coming from the mechabeast's knee snaps toward her as if it were possessed. It wraps around her wand, administering shock for measure.

"Ow! Not cool!"

Vidia's immobilization gives out, and the wire snatches Tink's wand away and deposits it like a new bone in its skeleton.

"Greeaaat!" Vidia says, leaping like one of Fawn's familiars in attempts to evade the mechabeast's grips. The screeching of rusty metal and the rain surely do not make this fun either.

"Blow wind at it or something!" Tink supplies helplessly from the side.

"What, so I can send a giant bowling ball to strike out those trees?"

"Just, do _something_! I don't––" Tink's breathing is becoming labored in panic. "I can't do anything! I don't have my wand!"

Vidia raises her arm and moves it in a circle as if she were spinning a lasso. A whirl gathers, invisible but potent, and when the time is right, or when the mechabeast's arm is swinging again, whichever comes first, Vidia releases it.

The mechabeast's internal structure whistles, deep and terrifying. Tink and Vidia cover their ears in pain. The rain falls relentlessly. The mechabeast continues to swing, miss, create holes on the muddled ground.

"It's not gonna––this isn't going to work! I can't think! I'm freaking out!"

"It's okay, just try something else––"

"It's not okay!" Vidia shouts, dangling the soaked duck in the air. "You can come out now, Mary! You've proven your point! I don't belong here! I've never belonged here! I don't deserve to be a witch!"

The mechabeast's joints screech as wires slither from it's insides, and perhaps its fist is what Medusa would look like if well, she were a robotic fist––

"Look out!" Tinker Bell pulls Vidia back by the cape, and they stumble backward.

"This is ridiculous." Vidia grips her wand with both hands and does another immobilizing spell, getting both arms this time.

"Do what feels right."

"What feels right is running."

"Is that what always feels right?"

"No, of course not, I could––I could do this if it was just me I had to save. But now there's you."

The mechabeast's limbs start screeching again as it pushes against Vidia's immobilization.

Tink stares at the monstrous mess, blinking away the constant rain. She allows herself just a moment, and then she gets it.

"And the duck," she says. She scoots closer to Vidia on the ground and places her hands at the base of Vidia's wand so that they're both holding on to it.

"What are you doing?"

"It's raining."

"Yes, I know."

"We need to short circuit this asshole. Gangly wires won't do it on its own."

Vidia turns her head to look at Tink, her change in concentration almost letting the mechabeast free. "Your wand is in there."

Tink swallows. "That's okay."

"What if this doesn't work?"

"That's okay, too."

The mechabeast is slipping, so Vidia asks no more questions. They hold Vidia's wand tightly, and focus.

The bright stream of light begins to pool around the tip, to each of their surprise. Tinker Bell's wand, tucked into the mechabeast's interior, begins to rattle with its own glow.

It's still got it's sloppy gum consistency, like if it were not light but matter it would be goo, but it keeps on accumulating, expanding, expanding, until––

The midpoint of methodical and winging it.

"Now!" Vidia says, and the force of the light pushes them further into the mud, strikes the mechabeast at it's center of mass, and flashes violently.

It's so bright that perhaps Vidia thinks she's woken up from a dream.

When they open their eyes again, the clouds are gone, and the mechabeast is just a pile of trash. Mary and the other witches stand in the distance, clapping.

"Great work, girls!" Mary yells. "A little inelegant but you'll pull through."

Tink doesn't hesitate to throw herself into what's left of the obstacles, digging around for what she hopes is her wand in one piece.

"Oh thank the gods," she breathes when she finds it. She clutches it to her chest.

Vidia follows behind her, and when Tink turns around, Vidia shoves the plush duck into her arms.

"I never want to see that thing again."

* * *

Tink walks Vidia back home at the end of the day.

"Vidia?"

"Yes?"

"About what you said, in the meadow. About not––do you... want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Okay. Vidia?"

"What."

Tink holds her breath. _Your mother would be proud_. "I'm glad to have you as my _socius_."

Vidia's eyes shine. She looks like she's going to hug Tinker Bell, but says instead: "God, it's not like we're getting married. Goodnight."

She closes the door before Tink can say it back.

* * *

Two months later, Tinker Bell is lying in bed with the radio on when she hears the news.

"Dear fellow, most treasured witches of Crescent Hollow: I am here bringing bad news. I trust that we will have the strength to receive it.

"On the December of six years ago, we lost one of our most beloved witches to an evil, merciless, corrupted magic. We lost not just a member of our covens, but a friend, a mother, a _socius_. On the same month we recruited a band of witches to leave Crescent Hollow to search for the source of the exogenous magic.

"Last night at dusk they returned with half their group. They have found a source. They're a group of magic users, like ourselves, but they do not wish to be like ourselves. They do not wish for us to exist at all. What they do wish, is to have Crescent Hollow. We've assessed their needs and their demands, and we cannot meet them without cost of the community we've built together.

"Witches, as your Headmistress, I ask of you with a heavy heart to prepare. The Academy will be accommodating you. As your fellow witch, I ask of you this: to remember. While perfection is an unreachable endpoint, remember that love, love of each other, of our home, and of magic for the greater good, is the strongest foundation a society could ask for.

 _Fidem et fiduciam_."

Tinker Bell closes her eyes. " _Fidem et fiduciam_."

* * *

Vidia doesn't want to listen.

She's here because Tinker Bell asked her to, because she didn't want to ask the Headmistress if her parents had returned with the group alone. But she doesn't want to hear the answer sitting outside Clarion's office.

She doesn't want to hear it when Tinker Bell starts uncontrollably crying.

She does what feels right. She runs.

* * *

With her wand pulsating insistently, Tinker Bell finds Vidia sitting in front of a lake feeding real ducks with grains. Vidia's own wand, doing it's strobe light thing, is wrapped in her cloak feet away from her.

Tink doesn't ask her why she left. She didn't want to see anyone after leaving Clarion's office anyway.

She sits beside Vidia and opens her palm for some of the grains, and Vidia places some without looking at her.

"I thought you resented me," Vidia says. "My mother's death was why your parents left you behind. So I thought you hated me for it."

Tinker Bell throws the grains in the water. "That wasn't true."

"All the same, you hated me eventually."

"So you did what felt right. You started to hate me."

"No," Vidia says. "It never did feel right. Losing my best friend right after losing my mother didn't feel right. Enough about me. How do you feel?"

"What do you expect?"

"I thought maybe you could surprise me."

Tink hums, making something of a laugh.

"Do you remember that terrible joke you made when you found your talent and inclination? I told you mechanics wasn't even an element. And you said, maybe if that's not what you expect. You said it made it an––"

"Element of surprise."

Vidia chuckles. "Yeah. It's still a bad joke. I always think of it."

Tinker Bell watches the ducks eat, and a little farther away is a mother floating with her ducklings. She wants to tell Vidia that she's still got the plush. It's sitting on top of her dresser, next to the picture of her mom and dad.

"I'll grieve like I have been in a way for the past six years. I have my friends, and in the end, we're all family."

"Mm."

"Our coven's having a special dinner tonight. You should come."

"The offer is handsome. But I'll have to say no."

"You belong there, Vidia," Tink says, tone serious, eyes sad. "You belong here. Fawn, whose familiars occasionally destroy a couple of halls on campus, belongs here. Rani who can't bind to a wand belongs here. Zarina who stole from Crescent Hollow belongs here. Everyone belongs. That's what we're founded on."

"Tinker Bell," Vidia says, looking at her. Tink meets her gaze.

And when Vidia leans in to kiss her, it's the midpoint between methodical and winging it.


End file.
